The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is a private, non-profit organization. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and manages the evolution of the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS). HEDIS has become the most commonly applied standardized measure of health plan performance in the United States. Health plans accredited by NCQA are required to report HEDIS rates to NCQA. Selected HEDIS rates are considered in accreditation scoring.

We want to tell you about five new HEDIS measures that NCQA has added to HEDIS 2006. HEDIS 2006 will measure performance for the 2005 calendar year.

The new measures include:

• Use of Spirometry in Diagnosis and Assessment of COPD. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. This measure asks whether initial diagnosis of COPD involves spirometry, which is widely agreed to be the most accurate means of diagnosing the disease.
  
  
• ADHD Medication Follow-up. Up to 12% of children are thought to have ADHD. This measure looks at whether children who have been prescribed ADHD medication have received systematic follow-up office visits to ensure that potential adverse side effects of these medications are avoided.
  
  
• Drugs to be Avoided in the Elderly and Annual Monitoring of Patients on Persistent Medications. With Medicare's prescription drug benefit set to go into effect in the near future, the safe use of prescription drugs among Medicare beneficiaries is an issue of special interest. These two patient safety measures assess the safe use of medications: Drugs to Be Avoided in the Elderly assesses whether patients 65 and older have received prescriptions for drugs such as barbiturates that have been determined to be harmful to elderly patients, while Annual Monitoring of Patients on Persistent Medications ensures that Medicare recipients taking drugs over the long term receive appropriate follow-up.
  
  
• Antibiotic Use in Adults with Acute Bronchitis. Developed in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and others, this measure seeks to reduce overuse of antibiotics to treat acute bronchitis, for which antibiotics are ineffective. Overuse of antibiotics increases antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens and costs billions of dollars annually.

If you would like more information about any of these measures, please contact Pat Scheer, HNE Quality Operations Manager at 413-233-3435 (email: pscheer@hne.com). .